Lookouts Step Up For Brush Fire Season

ACROSS OSCEOLA

ABOVE U.S. HIGHWAY 192 — Now that brush fire season is starting to heat up, ranger Steve Richardson and his colleagues figure to do a lot more climbing.

There are 144 steps on the way up to the state Division of Forestry's lofty perch near Ashton east of St. Cloud. Richardson hasn't personally counted the steps of the agency's tower, but when fire season arrives the three rangers stationed there find themselves going up and down the winding staircase much more often.

Richardson says a Boy Scout on a recent tour reported the count of 144 steps.

Trust me, whatever the number it is a decent hike to get to the observation room at the top of the tower.

You can't see to infinity and beyond, but on a clear day you can easily see 20 miles or more in all directions. Even on a hazy day it seems like the horizon is far, far away. Hotels on International Drive, the control tower at Orlando International Airport and the Orlando Utilities power plant are a few landmarks that are visible from the perch west of St. Cloud.

The tower rises 100 or so feet in the air and on a windy day - like the ones around here last week - the motion is detectable.

The room is bare-bones and cramped. And for some reason it is filled with wasps. Richardson can't explain the insects' presence, but it is a thriving colony that buzzes harmlessly around us - or so they would have us think.

The alidade, a pointing device used to locate fires, takes up the center of the 7-by-7-foot room. There also are a radio, a phone and an old portable radio. It is peaceful up here as the strong wind blasts through an open window.

Richardson or one of the other rangers here, Joe Burroughs and Brad Blackman, climbs to the observation post daily to check for fires. Although this tower and two other Osceola towers - in Kenansville and Deer Park - are no longer staffed full time, they are part of a network guarding the wilderness.

In fact, a watcher in a south Orange County tower spotted the smoke from a brush fire on I-Drive last week. Richardson was called and went to work in the Ashton tower. Using the alidades, the two towers pinpointed the fire.

In addition to detecting and fighting fires, the Division of Forestry runs many fire prevention and educational programs. Rangers also conduct controlled burns to prevent brush fires.

Controlled burns are a bigger part of the job than manning the towers. Now, with cellular phones and other methods for spotting and reporting fires, the need for the towers is declining.

Fire towers like the three in Osceola County once dotted the nation with full-time watchers spending hours and hours scanning the horizon for smoke.

More than 5,000 fire lookout towers once spread across the United States. Only a few hundred remain, and in Florida fewer than 200 are left.

The Osceola towers, along with one in Orange, three in Seminole and two in Brevard, constitute the Division of Forestry's District 12. Only the tower near Moss Park in south Orange County has a full-time observer.

Brush fire season begins in November and runs through April or May when daily showers help alleviate the dangers. Conditions like high winds, little rain, loose or dead vegetation, all combine to keep rangers and firefighters busy.

For example, in January of this year, firefighters in Orange, Osceola, Brevard, Volusia, Seminole, Lake and Marion counties battled 114 brush fires, with more than 1,798 acres charred.

For all the work teaching fire prevention and keeping watch, it seems the old slogan is still true: ''Only you can prevent forest fires.''